


try to hide it out

by circuitricardoporno



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Blow Jobs, M/M, enjoy, here we most certainly are, well my dudes, with some wholesome last-season fun I thought I ought to post before the new one started
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 23:30:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13937751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circuitricardoporno/pseuds/circuitricardoporno
Summary: Lewis starts thinking he's not standing near Carlos - which was what he'd thought because what Toro Rosso driver would pass the invisible velvet rope into champion territory? But it increasingly seems like maybe Carlos is colluding with someone to drive him steadily insane.





	try to hide it out

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to C & L for making me actually bother to write this after a trillion years of drafts folder limbo.
> 
> Title is from Beggin For Thread by Banks.

Lewis doesn't know why he's so drawn to him, doesn't notice it at first because his head is full of Sebastian and Valtteri and inevitably, Nico. But he finds himself standing next to Carlos at random moments - idly waiting for a briefing or a weigh in or the parade.

He thought it was some bullshit sense memory at first, tried to work out if he was wearing the same aftershave as Fernando or something, tickling at some old part of his brain. That meant standing close enough to smell him though, which made everything else worse. And Carlos kept touching him like he wasn't worried about it, which is weird.

Fernando touches him but in the way Fernando always has, which is with something like the same arch judgement of a sommelier inspecting a bottle you've grabbed in a cornershop on your way to a party. And Sebastian does too but in his own skittish way - people don't touch multiple world champions, it's like every title gilds your skin into a trophy they know they haven't earned the right to.

(In his worse periods of 3am anxiety he wonders if it would be different to touch Nico now, if they’d still tarnish each other)

Carlos doesn't seem to care, though. Maybe because he's allowed to hug Fernando or his dad or some sort of specific Spanish social conditioning because he doesn't keep his distance at all.

Lewis starts thinking he's not standing near Carlos - which was what he'd thought because what Toro Rosso driver would pass the invisible velvet rope into champion territory? But it increasingly seems like maybe Carlos is colluding with someone to drive him steadily insane. Carlos presses up against his back after qualifying, walks fingers up the tattoos on his forearm in the briefing, leans against his shoulder in the queue for the press conference and if it's a mind game it's working because he starts to seek it out.

Maybe he’s just lonely. He’s not oblivious to the fact his biggest preoccupation for the last sixteen years is no longer on near-permanent tour with him and also that his mental state is, maybe, a little bit - what was the phrase Fernando used? Limping on half power. 

Which he’s not, in the races - he knows he’s not, he’s probably feeling more unleashed, hungrier than he’s been in a long time. But then sometimes he looks at Valtteri and there’s no replacing someone who you at least knew was experiencing exactly the same intense misery as you with someone who’s just happy to be there. Even when he and Nico weren’t friends, they were  _ together  _ and it turns out he’s still not great at the finer points of Finnish social interactions, even after all that. 

Also he can’t be arsed to make friends, the whole thing seems really bollocks and he’s  _ tired  _ and this season he really is spending all the fucking time thinking about food because, yeah, sure, the comfort and although there’s lots of other things to salve it, there’s no satisfaction to denying yourself that. 

And there are other things to feed on.

He’s not been that interested in  _ sex  _ per se for awhile, it’s emotionally and literally messy and it disrupts his brain and the vast majority of orgasms are a pale echo to a win. There’ve been a few flashes, with Seb but revisiting something  _ that  _ teenage is too stupid - and with a rival… it would be nice if they could maintain entente cordiale. 

Carlos is not a rival. And when Lewis was a teenager he was a toddler. He keeps thinking about the Rolling Stones for some reason, which is surely that he needs to get more wholesome pursuits but also something about Carlos undeniably starts him up.

There are bigger things to worry about than the fact he’s got a weird crush on a Toro Rosso driver, so he mostly doesn’t. Mostly. Because sometimes it’s good to give your anxiety some flavour - a kind of 4am-staring-at-the-ceiling cheat meal.

Carlos is definitely off the menu. The kind of dairy alternative, gluten free pizza that Lewis knows perfectly well where to get in Monte Carlo and sometimes walks past, stands for a moment fiddling with his phone and pretending his earphones have stopped working while he wrestles with the temptation like his steering’s broken at full pelt through Parabolica. 

So far, he has not actually crossed the road and gone in, just inhaled the fumes while wondering how much their profit margin increased when Nico decided he was allergic to wheat last year. He himself is, of course, far less prone to whim and just gave it up because if carbs taste like shit it’s slightly easier to not crave them. 

God, really, is it really all food this year? He should go to LA for a bit, that’s like the antithesis of Carlos. 

Fernando starts giving him shrewd looks, which he’s almost willing to bet Sebastian is somehow paying him to do. God, god,  _ get your head together.  _ Everything is meant to be  _ less  _ paranoid this year, just the blatantly apparent problem that Ferrari have a better car and Seb has a history of that working out for him. 

That was awhile ago, of course. And Lewis has never been anything other than frustratedly willing to compete in a shitbox that can barely make turn 3 so there’s a genuine pleasure to there being something to fight over other than the broadcast rights to a shared history. 

Maybe he’s envious of Carlos? His darker moments leave him wondering if he’d like to do this all again and have it go differently but it’s not like the younger guys seem to be having a relaxing time of it. Lewis tries to send Jolyon a guilty, supportive message but realises he doesn’t actually know how to get in touch with him.

Of course his own restraint, no matter how much he tightens it like a tourniquet on his own worst distraction tendencies, has absolutely no impact whatsoever on Carlos. Chili. His friends call him Chili and Lewis thinks they may have, in some strange way where they don’t actually have each other’s phone numbers, become friends. 

Not that anyone needs a phone number anymore to stay in touch now. He left Snapchat, because honestly there’s no need for this sort of thing, he’s 32. But there’s, like,  _ left  _ as in told his social media producer to concentrate on the Instagram stories strategy - or well, his PR team told the social team who told the Instagram expert - and left as in ‘actually uninstalled the app.’

Lewis doesn’t drink, in-season. Except on podiums or if he’s really depressed and needs a socially acceptable form of self-harm at a sponsor event. He’s always  _ assumed  _ the younger drivers don’t, either - they’re all way more serious about everything than he remembers being in his early twenties, as well as way more accepting of not being able to win.

The thing about being young is that occasionally you can misjudge things, though. Not in the spectacular way he or Seb does - Lewis is still smarting in some terrible, wounded way from Baku because  _ who the fuck does he think he is, Nico?  _ Nico would never be that blunderingly obvious.

At a guess, he would say Carlos has misjudged this. That he’s going to wake up feeling too nauseous for the gym he’s got to go to anyway and at least half of that will be the anxiety of what the  _ fuck  _ he sent everyone last night. Assuming this was to everyone, which, when he replays it for the fifth time, he thinks perhaps it isn’t because it has his name in. 

Maybe Carlos knows other people who he thinks he’s going to see in Hungary called Lewis. That seems unlikely, though and it seems dirty to wank over a drunken video, a quick, shirt-unbuttoned few seconds of Carlos’s blown, dark eyes and wet mouth saying he misses him, see him at the Hungaroring, that he hopes Lewis is ok and- it cuts off.

Lewis has the feeling that was about to be the good bit. Fucking Snapchat.

It sets off a thought process, though. He doesn’t reply because he can’t think what to say and Lewis doesn’t usually have that problem. He nearly asks the guy who’s doing the Instagram stories now but that seems several steps too desperate, so he asks Neymar instead, who is no help.

“No, no - listen to me, you can’t fuck your teammates.”

“He’s at a differe-”

“Listen, they’re all your teammates. No fucking. You did this before. Hey, you’re at fashion week - I’ll see you at fashion week. No fucking.”

The line goes dead and Lewis decides he definitely needs to get some worse influences in his life.

Fortunately, Fernando is right there as soon as he arrives in Austria. He decides, even if there’s no need for mind games with Alonso, to chuck out a casual “Hey man, what’s up with Chili?”

Fernando frowns at him like Lewis is a level of a computer game he’d forgotten he’d got stuck on. “Who?”

“Oh - Carlos.” He knows perfectly well he’s winding Fernando up, Fernando knows perfectly well he’s doing it, it’s just that it’s totally impossible to stop.

The frown has turned into a seething glare, which ices over for Alonso to say “Ah yes, his little friends call him that.”

“Oh right. Yeah, anyway, did he Snap you the other night?” This is delicious because Lewis _ knows _ he has Snapchat, WhatsApp, an app to make his Insta photos better cropped even though he  _ must  _ have a team to do that, really and probably some kind of rap-oriented presence on Musical.ly but Fernando would rather literally, physically eat his entire phone, on the podium, than anyone else find that out. 

“No? Is not something I check if he’s messaging Mitch or… whatever the other one is called.” Oh, oh, excellent - Fernando has memorised all of Carlos’ friends in enormous detail.

“Oh. Nevermind.” Good. That will drive Fernando mad for the next 48 hours, worse than itching powder in his thermals and eventually he will come to interrogate Lewis as though this had been his intent all along and not a delicious bait that had left its hook firmly through his mouth.

Lewis walks away feeling very satisfied indeed, coat pulled high up his neck against the mountain chill. 

\--------

Carlos rests his head against Lewis’ shoulder in the queue for the driver’s parade. It’s such a non sequitur he doesn’t know what to do - so casually done, leaning against him where they’re standing in line, Carlos’ attention on his phone. 

Lewis is quite studied in not looking panicked about things. So he turns to the driver to his left, who turns out to be Pascal - oh god, he really ought to, like, talk to him more - and tries to smile very brightly and ask him how he is without concentrating entirely on the warm weight of Carlos’ fluffy hair tickling against his neck tattoo. 

Pascal is having a nice weekend, apparently - his parents are here, he spoke to Tatiana earlier and he's out qualified Marcus so he's feeling a little happier. Lewis wonders what he would have done if the best drive he'd ever got had been last year's engine and if it would do any good for him to talk to Toto. 

He feels fingers against his arm, Carlos squeezing his elbow as he nestles closer and Lewis tries not to flinch. This has to be something Fernando is putting him up to. It has to be. 

Pascal carries on chatting and Lewis wishes he'd just hidden somewhere with his earphones like usual. Not because there's anything wrong with Pascal, other than a vague tickle of guilt somewhere at the back of Lewis' brain but because Carlos’ roving fingers have slipped to his waist, sliding just slightly under his jacket and every muscle in Lewis’ stomach has clenched, his skin screaming for the touch. 

He's holding his breath and not drinking his pre-race isotonic goo, he needs to stop behaving like a teenager. He can't remember being this delirious over a few touches since Ibiza a million lifetimes ago and it's embarrassing and he desperately doesn't want it to stop. 

Lewis wishes Pascal good luck as the bus stops, voice steady enough to almost disguise the intake of breath as a single finger tip prints itself on the ridge of muscle above his hip bone before Carlos is, wordlessly, gone. He feels it more than every line of ink on his body, for days. 

He gives into the urge later, pretending to himself that he's drunker than he is, coming in the shower with one hand over the spot like it burns. The question of whether Carlos does the same is what pushes him over the edge - the idea of being desired like that by someone not at all afraid to take, someone so sure of themselves in this one regard, someone entirely too much like a 22 year old Nico. 

Carlos is beautiful, of course - anyone with eyes knows that, the same way there was a reason Nico got called Britney. Lewis imagines lying out on a bed with him, tracing Carlos’s waist, the jut of his ribs, the thick coating of chest hair - fuck, he always liked it when Nico let his grow a bit but Carlos - Chili - is something else. 

It’s not Nico. He’s not having a breakdown - well, he might be but this is neither symptom nor cause. Fuck, why does Sebastian have to be like this? Where he isn’t sure what ‘this’ is other than ‘emotionally unavailable for Lewis’ own self-hating backlash after a defeat.’ He’s probably celebrating with his  _ wife  _ like a real 30-something multiple world champion.

Lewis opens Snapchat.

He’s shirtless and the tracksuit trousers he has on need changing. And he ought to let Coco back into the bedroom because he can hear her whining occasionally outside the door but there are some things it’s just not right to do in front of your pet and he might have finished with the main sordid activities but this is still not something he wants interrupted by a sudden slobber-hug.

Lewis has plenty of experience trying to make himself look attractive. Fashionable, cool, anything really. He's not really done so much sexting though. 

Fuck it - Coco is whining again, he's got almost no time before he realises what a bad idea this is so he just shoves his pants down enough to be more than suggestive, looks up into the camera big-eyed and sends Carlos a “So fucking bored.” 

Then he has to go and let the dog in and change his trousers and have another shower and ignore his phone so he doesn't panic and try to pretend he can't hear someone knocking on the door for the first few times until it really gets too annoying. What the fuck do they want? 

Carlos is bolder with him than he ever expects but  _ actually turning up at Lewis’ door  _ was not something he'd thought of. Maybe a saucy reply, sure - in fact he was really hoping for that because otherwise it would just be cripplingly embarrassing. But he didn’t expect, has never expected so perhaps he should have seen this coming really, sudden physical presence.

Lewis is slightly dumbfounded. Carlos is not. 

“You say you are bored, I find your room number from Valtteri.”

Lewis is trying very hard not to gawp but both the fact that Carlos is in the corridor outside his room and that he has just artfully scruffed up his hair are slightly throwing him sideways. Do Toro Rosso stay in the same hotel as Mercedes? Really? How does Carlos know Valtteri? Was that weird rumor about Val and Kvyat actually true? Is he going to have to speak to Alonso again to find any of this out?

He tries to stop thinking so hard as Coco winds round the half-open door and hurls herself at Carlos’ shoes with snorting, enthusiastic abandon, tugging at the laces and visibly slobbering. At this point it barely seems surprising that Carlos seems to know her already - Lewis is beginning to wonder if the Toro Rosso driver has keys to his house and stays with his mum. He should ask Nick if him and Carlos play Xbox together. Fuck, they probably do. Is Carlos a spy?

His brain spirals back to Spygate and Fernando, at the same time as he opens the door and hears himself say “Cool man, come in.”

He tries to subtly check himself in the mirror as he pads across the suite, see if he looks as off-kilter as he feels but the soft glare of the lamp right next to it is giving nothing away, even if he is. Well, hell - what did he think he was going to get? Or even want, frankly - it’s not like he didn’t message Carlos. Or like he doesn’t have something close to an ache in the pit of his stomach about how much he wants the Spaniard to touch him literally  _ anywhere.  _

No sooner has he thought it than insistent fingers are at his waist, hipbones, “Maybe can do something interesting?”

Carlos’ voice is a little breathless, giggly and Lewis can’t walk any further across the room. What the  _ fuck,  _ this is like him breaking into DC’s room and acting like a little cocktease or something. Only worse - so much worse - because he is 100% sure Coulthard would have laughed at him and instead Lewis is leaning into Carlos’ touch.

Carlos’ fingers massage small circles into his skin and Lewis decides to be, if not the bigger person (he can feel Carlos’ lips against the back of his neck, head dipped against Lewis’ - damn they’re  _ tall  _ these days) then at least the one with some standards, “Not in front of Coco, man.”

The man behind him laughs, low and smooth and dirty and it reminds Lewis of something he can’t place, some memory from long ago that’s stirred up like the smell of driftwood cracking on a beach fire somewhere balearic. “You better take me to bed, no?”

Lewis  _ shudders.  _ Look, ok, fine - he spent years fooling around with Nico and everyone fucking knows but that doesn’t mean he’s not  _ repressed as fuck  _ and just the idea of him ever having the nerve to turn up in the previous racing generation’s hotel room and just openly declare they’re here to fuck is as ludicrous as the way Carlos is steering him towards the bedroom. 

Carlos’ hands are warm on his waist and Lewis feels like he’s gone onto autopilot. And nervous, extremely nervous - which is stupid, he’s obviously had more sex than Carlos, surely? Are they going to have sex? He’s not sure he actually wants to have sex, his heart is going a bit fast in a way he’s not used to it doing. 

“Are we going to fuck?” It comes out too fast and much too high pitched. “Or, like, what? I’m not used to this.”

Carlos laughs again, peels Lewis’ fingers off the door handle and turns him around, crowding him against the door. Carlos’ eyes are so fucking big, long lashes dusting his cheeks as he looks down for a moment, interlacing their fingers between their chests. “Maybe. Is fun to play, is nothing wrong.”

Lewis nods because, yeah, he knows it’s not even if he’s had to have a few mental arguments with himself about that. “I uh… is this weird?”

Carlos shrugs at him, eyes big and innocent. “No?”

It is, though. It really is weird, in the middle of this weird, fucked-up, off-kilter season and Lewis  _ hates  _ weirdness, fuck. Especially weird fucking - he’s never been into making anything more complicated than it needs to be except in his own head.

Carlos is staring at him and touching him, his thumb rubbing over the ridges of Lewis’ knuckles, “Can just cuddle, if you want?”

Lewis involuntarily closes his eyes because actually  _ yes  _ and also  _ fuck,  _ he is pathetic. “Yeah, uh.” Oh fuck what, is he  _ twelve?  _ “Yeah, just, whatever happens man.”

Carlos smirks at him, at that and it’s almost too much to handle and Lewis nearly kicks him out except that he leans in and kisses him. Just softly, at the corner of Lewis’ mouth – and then down his neck and he can’t help throwing his head back with a dull  _ thunk  _ against the solid, expensive wood of the door. How the fuck is this happening?

“Yeah, uh. Bedroom.” Is he  _ actually  _ twelve? Does he have any condoms? They probably shouldn't do anything that needs condoms. What needs condoms these days anyway? Is oral still OK? 

Whatever it is, he's not doing it with the dog snuffling round his feet. Even during a minor-grade freakout he can manage to open the door and pull Carlos through it while using one foot to prevent Coco making a break for it. 

For a second, he can’t look at Carlos, the awkwardness just too crushing. God, how has he got Sainz in his bedroom? Is he actually going to fuck a Toro Rosso driver? No - no. This isn’t happening. 

“Uh.” He thunks his head against the door again, only facing it this time. “Actually, we shouldn’t do this.”

Carlos’ fingers are a microscopic distance from the skin of his arm - he can feel them like a magnet, making the hairs stand on end like a static attraction. The other man hums, not moving away, forcing Lewis to speak again or endure the limbo forever.

“Like, I don’t know what’s got into me but - you don’t want the paddock to talk about you like this.” It’s a shit excuse and Carlos surely knows it; who’s going to talk? Fernando? Hardly likely he’d be quick to gossip about his beloved protegee fucking an old grudge and what’s anyone going to say to Lewis? Jenson would take the piss, probably. 

“Is ok.” Carlos maddeningly doesn’t specify  _ what  _ \- that Lewis is having a meltdown or that anyone might think he’s a champion slag. If he’d just show the slightest sign that this also makes him nervous Lewis would feel better.

“Like - what?” Lewis hates hearing himself sound like an idiot - and also the fact he’s got that loss-of-control feeling that makes his temper flare and warns him he’s about to be an asshole. 

Carlos tuts at him, an almost-muttered, under-his-breath sound and closes the micro-chasm between their skin, pressing Lewis up to the door again with Carlos against his back, warm pressure somehow slowing the panic where he ought to feel trapped, surely? “The paddock talk a lot of shit.”

Carlos’ voice is husky, breath humid against the skin of Lewis’ neck. Lewis almost expected the swear to be censored, like Carlos was so densely coated in sugarfree Red Bull media training he came with an auto-asterisk for obscenity. It’s hot between their bodies. 

Lewis shudders.

“Fuck me and leave.” His voice sounds steadier than it has since Carlos arrived, although he feels like his brain’s gone foggy. Lewis’ dick is pressing up against the wood of the door as Carlos half-growls against his neck, roughly tugging at his clothes and it’s not gentle, they don’t kiss - and thank fuck he turns out to have condoms.

The Spaniard feels like fire on him, scorching off something he should have preserved. It’s been a long time, a  _ really  _ long time and Lewis is surprised not to be able to stop himself, coming suddenly in Carlos’ mouth before he’s expecting to, caught up in the movement of tongue and lips that sensitises everything. 

He’s half-scared Carlos won’t leave, half-scared that he will. The sudden orgasm leaves him a little winded and he’s aware it’s rude not to reciprocate but he definitely doesn’t think he can go again himself, so sex is off the cards.

Lewis blindly reaches a hand down, having tipped his head back in half-shock and grabs a handful of sweat-moist hair where Carlos is resting against his thigh, fingers splayed over Lewis’ hipbones loosely, no pressure. There’s weight against his hand, Carlos leaning into the touch and Lewis tries to get his thoughts together, sprawled naked on the duvet, tracksuit trousers still tangled at his ankles where Carlos is kneeling off the side of the bed. 

“You don’t have to go.” He sounds hoarse and feels a little played by everything, not least himself. 

Carlos makes a noncommittal noise, kisses at Lewis’ wrist. It’s so  _ unbothered,  _ as though he’s not going to torture himself with any angst about this encounter, like he doesn’t have to overthink his every move until it feels like his head’s choked in the wrong mode. It makes Lewis’ heart skip a traitorous beat, thinking about the last time he knew a 23 year old with so much self-assurance who’d also put his dick in their mouth.

Lewis drags him up in the end, the lack of visibility making him nervous. Carlos is gorgeously dishevelled - and visibly aroused, jeans straining against an erection. Lewis wets his lips, pausing, as the younger man makes a lewd gesture, looking questioning and yes, yes Lewis is into him wanking himself off until he comes across his stomach.

They lie side-by-side after, talking about not-really-anything. Carlos has a dog, which he instantly forgets the name of. It’s kind of stiltedly pleasant, the small talk absolutely not of two people who’ve just swallowed and been splattered in each others’ jizz. Carlos leaves before the morning, although Lewis can’t remember falling asleep.

\------

He’s found Fernando’s Snapchat and this is  _ very  _ good. Because Lewis hasn’t told him yet and he can just wait for that moment, the cold dread of the follow notification.

Neymar slaps him in a taxi through Camden – “I said no fucking, dude” – and Lewis can’t even pretend to be sorry for the state of himself.


End file.
